I sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her with interest. "Thirty-two years? That's a long time, Mrs. Seddon. Did you come with the first Madame de Valmy, then?"
"That I did. She was from Northumberland, the same as me."
"Then she was English?" I said, surprised.
"Indeed, yes. She was a lovely girl, Miss Deborah. I’d been in service at her home ever since she was a little girl. She met the Master in Paris one spring, and they was engaged in a fortnight, just like that. Oh, very romantic it all was, very romantic. She said to me, she said: 'Mary'-that's my name, miss-'Mary,' she said, 'you'll come with me, won't you? I won't feel so far from home then,' she said." Mrs. Seddon nodded at me, with an easy sentimental moistening of the eye. "So, seeing as I was courting Arthur-that's Mr. Seddon- meself at the time, I married him and made him go along too. I couldn't let Miss Debbie adventure all by herself to foreign parts, like."
"Of course not," I said sympathetically, and Mrs. Seddon beamed, settling her arms together under the plump bosom, obviously ready to gossip for as long as I would listen. She gave the appearance of one indulging in a favourite pastime whose rules were almost forgotten. If I had been delighted to see her pleasant English face after the secret countenances of Albertine and Bernard, it was obvious that Mrs. Seddon had been equally pleased to see me. And the governess, of course, was not on the proscribed list: this could not be called Gossiping with the Servants. I supposed that, for me, Mrs. Seddon was hardly on the proscribed list either. At any rate I was going to gossip all I could.
I prompted her: "And then when your Miss Debbie… died, you didn't go back to England? What made you stay on, Mrs. Seddon?"
As to that, it seemed that she was not quite sure herself. Miss Debbie's father had died meanwhile and the house in England had been sold, while here at Valmy Mrs. Seddon and her husband had excellent jobs which "the Master" seemed quite disposed to let them keep… I also gathered that Miss Debbie's interest had lifted them into positions which in another house they might never have filled; Seddon himself had been on my one sight of him impeccably polished, neutral and correct; Mrs. Seddon too, had all the trappings of the competent and superior housekeeper; but her voice and some of her mannerisms had, gloriously defying gentility, remained the homely and genuine voice and ways of Mary Seddon, erstwhile second-gardener's daughter.
I listened to a long description of Miss Debbie, and others of Miss Debbie's home, father, pony, clothes, jewellery, wedding, wedding-presents and wedding-guests. When we appeared to be about to launch (via how much Miss Debbie's mother would have liked to be at the wedding if only she had been alive) on a description of Miss Debbie's mother's clothes, jewellery, wedding, and so on, as observed by Mrs. Seddon's mother-then I thought it was time to prod her gently back to foreign parts.
"And there was Miss Debbie's son, wasn't there? Of course you wanted to stay and look after him?"
"Mr. Rowl?" She primmed her lips a little. "French nurses they had for him. Such a quiet little boy as he was, too-a bit like Master Philip here, very quiet and never a mite of bother. You'd never have thought-" But here she stopped, sighing a little wheezily, and shook her head. "Eh, well, miss, he's half foreign, say what you will."
There was all rural England in the condemnation. I waited, gravely expectant, but she merely added, maddeningly: "But there, I never was one to gossip. And now, if you'll excuse me, I’ll have to be getting about my work and leaving you to unpack. Now, miss, if there's anything you want you've only to ask me or Seddon and we'll do our best to help you."
"Thank you very much. I'm awfully glad you're here, Mrs. Seddon," I added naively.
She looked pleased. "Well, now, that's very nice of you, miss, I'm sure. But you'll soon feel at home and pick things up. I couldn't speak a word of French when I came here first, and now I can talk it as fast as they can."
"I heard you. It sounded wonderful." I stood up and clicked back the lodes of my suitcase. "As you say, thirty years is a long time, especially when one's away from home. You didn't feel tempted to go back to England, say, when Monsieur de Valmy married again?"
"Oh, we talked of it, Seddon and I," she said comfortably, "but Seddon's that easy-going, and we liked the new Madam, and she was satisfied, so we stayed. Besides, I've had the asthma terrible bad since a girl, and, say what you like, none of these new-fangled things they give you, anti-hysterics and such-like, seem to do me any good. I used to get it terrible bad at home, but up here it cleared up something wonderful. It still comes now and again, but it soon goes off. It's the air. Wonderful healthy it is up here, and very dry."
"It's certainly lovely."
"And then," said Mrs. Seddon, "after the Master had his accident, she wouldn't hear of us going. He couldn't stand changes, you see."
"I did gather that from what he said to me in the hall. Does he-does he have much pain, Mrs. Seddon?"
"Pain? No. But he has his days," said Mrs. Seddon cryptically. "And you can't blame him, the way things are."
"No, of course not. He's bound to get depressed at times."
"Depressed?" She looked at me blankly. "The Master?"
I was still trying to equate the self-confessed "neurotic" with the impression of easy and competent power that Leon de Valmy gave. "Yes. Does he get sort of sorry for himself at times?"
She gave a sound suspiciously like a snort. "Sorry for himself? Not him! Mind you, this last few years he's not been just as sweet-tempered as he might be, but he's all there, miss, you may be sure. He'd never be the one to give up because of a little thing like being crippled for life!"
"I think I can see that. In fact you never think of that when you talk to him." (I didn't add 'unless he reminds you', but the thought persisted.)
"That's so." She nodded at me again. "And he forgets it himself* most times. What with that electric chair of his, and the lift, and the telephone to every corner of the place, and that there Bernard to be the legs of him, there's nothing he can't do. But now and then, just like that, something'll bring it home to him, and then…
I said, still thinking of the scene in the halclass="underline" "What sort of thing?"
"Dear only knows. It might be a bad night, or a report coming in that something's gone wrong or been neglected in some place he can't get to himself to see to it, or something that needs doing and no money to do it with, or Mr. Rowl-" before, she stopped abruptly.
I waited. She pulled unnecessarily at a chair-cover to straighten it. She said vaguely: "Mr. Rowl runs the other estate for him Bellyveen, in the Midi, and there's always trouble over money, and it upsets the Master, and besides… ah, well, he's not often here, which is as it should be, seeing he's the one that reminds the Master most often that he's a helpless cripple for all the powerful ways he has with him."
I stirred. "Reminds him? That's rather beastly."
She looked shocked. "Oh, not on purpose, you understand. I didn't mean that! It's only that he-well, Mr. Rowl might be the Master like he was twenty years ago, you see."
"Oh, I see what you mean. He does all the things his father used to like doing. Polo, for instance?"
She shot me a surprised look. "Did they tell you about that?"
"No. I heard it from someone who knew them-someone I met on the plane."
"Oh, I see. Yes, that sort of thing. He could put his hand to anything, the Master." She smiled reminiscently and a little sadly. "Miss Debbie always did say he'd break his neck one day. He was such a one for sport-all sorts, motor-cars, horses, speed-boats… fighting with swords, even. He's got a shelf of silver cups for that alone."
“Fencing?”
“That's it. But cars and horses were the chief thing. I've often thought he'd break his own neck and everyone else's, the way he'd come up that zigzag from the Valmy bridge. Sometimes," added Mrs. Seddon surprisingly, "you'd think a devil was driving him… like as if he had to be able to do everything- and do it better than anybody else."